Couple of Shots, TVN Calendar

Here are a couple of shots from the last chase, one a panoramic, the other at initiation. I have a lot more from this day I'll eventually get around to posting as well.





Chris Chittick and I have been working on and now have sent off the proofs for a TVN calendar which should be available by early next week. It includes a lot of my photographs (all but 2 I believe) and contains my best photograph to date in it on May 22nd...which I can not share on the internet until after the episode airs!

I'll probably make a post when it's available online to purchase for anyone interested. I'm pretty excited since I've never really sold any of my photographs for others to purchase.

Shelf Cloud Panoramas

Below, are some attempts at panoramic photos of shelf clouds I've taken this year. The first in Nebraska near Columbus and the second just west of Quincy, Illinois. I didn't shoot them vertical, but rather horizontal, and I think they turned out alright...with maybe the exception of the Quincy one, since the 16-35 lens I was shooting shows distortion on the horizon from the wide angle.

Had another great storm photo day yesterday, where I chased a SE moving supercell from Salina, KS into the Flint Hills. Had no GPS on my laptop, so keeping up with it through the Flint Hills was quite a challenge. I lost count on the dead end roads and one-lane Farmer Bob roads I took; thank God they weren't muddy! No time-lapses, but shot more panoramic photos of a stunning shelf cloud at sunset. The supercell actually made one attempt at tornadogenesis as the RFD surged and wrapped around the north side close to the K-4 / K-15 intersection, before gusting out.

After that, an amazing sunset with golden fields emerged, as the decaying storm left a variety of colors on the backside. I must have taken 500 pictures yesterday, not wanting to miss anything. The Flint Hills are really a hidden gem in Kansas, and adding a photogenic storm to things at sunset really makes things serene. I was chasing solo and really wished I had someone there to share how amazing it was, but sometimes it's probably better to be alone. Pictures of yesterday at some point.

Recent Lightning Shots

After living on the road with the TVN crew for several months (and driving 25,000 + miles), I've returned back to my normal life and it just isn't quite as exciting. So I venture out on these 'under the ridge' days, (where pulse storms generally form from just heat and a weak cap...or from enough convergence along an old outflow boundary/ weak cold front) and try to regain that same intensity as before, but I generally just get disappointed.

I've been focusing on doing more time-lapse photography with the 5D Mark II and using an intervalometer which is amazing and I'll probably make a video in the next couple of years. The plan for 2011, is re-join the TVN crew till around the middle of June, then venture out solo for a couple of months after that--chasing the Northern Plains and Canada for slower moving storms/supercells and doing strictly time-lapse photography of everything I encounter.

Below are some lightning photos I've taken in the past couple of weeks...more to come at some point. You can catch my other blog posts over at tornadovideos.net as well,as I'm assisting over there when needed.

Yazoo City, MS Damage Panorama

Above is a panorama of the Yazoo City, MS tornado damage taken on April 24th, 2010 approximately 3 hours after the EF-4 tornado tore through the city. We were on 2-3 hours of sleep in 72 hours time, after driving from the Texas Panhandle to SW Iowa, then to Mississippi virtually non stop. We drove well over 2,300 miles in this time frame. The tornado was extremely rain-wrapped and moving at a dangerous 65 mph. We had a very close call, but luckily avoided the tornado. It was very sad to see such devastation once again and a day many of us will never forget.